THE FOREIGN BOOKKEEPER'S DEPARTMENT General Duties of the Department Upon this department converge the debit and credit tickets, letters and cables and advices, and all items affecting the foreign accounts of the bank, including its accounts with foreign corre spondents and the accounts of foreign banks and individuals -with it, their joint accounts with it, and incidental personal and capital accounts. The master function of the department is to keep the permanent final and controlling records of the bank's foreign transactions in complete and accurate form. As custodian of these records, the department is a source of reference before pay ments are made for or against an account and is therefore the guardian of the funds of the bank and its foreign customers. In addition to the keeping of books, the department passes upon signatures, issues and receives advices and confirmations, pre pares data for officers, and performs other miscellaneous duties which devolve upon the department because of its possession of the records. The department's work may, accordingly, be classed under two general heads: (r) the routine miscellaneous activities, and (2) the entry and proving of debits and credits to accounts.
The apportionment of these duties among clerks varies, of course, with the bank, as also do the books kept. It is character istic of all banks, however, to divide the clerks into groups to handle certain related books; for example: 1. The bills payable bookkeepers, who keep the depositors' drafts advised and outstanding books, the drafts paid without advice books, and the stop-payment book.
Miscellaneous Routine Duties Some of the miscellaneous routine duties of the department are as follows: I. It may be arranged to have a copy of every letter written in the foreign division sent to the foreign bookkeeper's depart ment, where those communications affecting an account are given to the bookkeeper in charge of the entries pertaining thereto and the others are sent directly to the files. All letters are checked in such a way that from the corresponding check mark made in the ledger the bookkeepers can tell at a glance the nature of the letter checked or the kind of advice sent and whether the item has been confirmed by letter from the foreign customer.
2. The department head keeps a dossier of semiprivate mail which includes such matters as new business, special transactions, and special conditions governing certain accounts. All such correspondence must be very carefully read and the accounts affected must be checked according to the special arrangements.
3. The department prepares certain information for the officers and others. Such information embraces lists of the ac counts in certain parts of the world for the officer in charge of the territory; the figures regarding interest-bearing and non interest-bearing accounts; the number of accounts opened and accounts dosed; the amount of foreign deposits; lists of the accounts overdrawn; etc.
4. The department keeps a cabinet of the signatures relating to the accounts in the foreign bookkeeper's, letter of credit, com mercial credit, and foreign customers' securities departments, together with those of prospective accounts. By means of these specimen signatures, the signatures on draft advices and on all pay ments made by the foreign tellers', the commercial credit, and the letter of credit departments are verified. In the domestic division, the verification of signatures as described in Volume III, Chapter XXIX, is done by a specialized signature department; a similar specialized department may be created to handle the foreign signatures, but in the absence of such, the verification can be best done by the bookkeepers who are most familiar with the account.
5. The department head signs all foreign drafts that come through the foreign tellers' department or other departments.
6. Besides the advices, notices, etc., mentioned above, the departmental mail contains letters and cables pertaining to the bookkeeping which must be answered by the department, as well as letters giving balances, transcripts, and reimbursement memoranda to be handled in accordance with special or standing instructions. A card file of these instructions is kept for reference.